This is amazing! Colony collapse disorder is a serious problem and the risk of losing such important pollinators puts the world’s food security at jeopardy. Please take the time to make areas in your city (or own garden!) bee friendly! I will be planting on the Sunshine Coast this weekend 🙂
Honey Bee Haven has created an interactive map showing where community members have created flourishing zones for bees to thrive. Bee (and pollinator) populations are taking a blow from current agricultural practices, specifically pesticides. You can take the pledge to create an environment in your own living space to benefit bees, then can upload your haven location to the map. Photos of your location can be uploaded as well!
The site states:
Bees pollinate a significant majority of the world’s food. In North America alone, honey bees pollinate nearly 95 kinds of fruits, including almonds, avocados, cranberries and apples. In fact, we can thank honey bees for one in three bites of food we eat.
Join others in taking part to protecting our pollinators!
Source: Andrew Olsen and Sara Knight, Pesticide Action Network, Beyond Pesticides, 2013
Sorry it has been over a month since I posted last! I have realized I fell off the blog earth right after I finished by final exams at UBC. The next morning I jumped on a flight to Oahu to go spend a month volunteering for a non-profit organization called Surfing the Nations and a week later flew out to visit family in Denver. After experiencing an adventurous start to a beautiful four month summer (I love University), here I am now, back in Vancouver, working at the garden store and as of yesterday launched kendal designs!
I have always been slightly obsessed with the concept of creating and having people love my designs enough they admire them (or purchase them!). Having gone to a visual arts school for high school, admiring the art work of other students in my class was a common practice (many of whom are still pursuing the arts at schools such as Emily Carr). I was fortunate to be inspired by some pretty talented students back in high school and have always wanted to continue to create.
Since I can remember, I have always been drawn to both art and nature and a conversation with the head of my high school arts program has always haunted me. When I was in grade 11 I made the decision to drop the film class I was taking to take biology 11 (I was stoked because bio 11 was focused on plants and animals). The head of my program was choked that I was replacing a heavily art based course with an science course. The conversation basically entailed that I was making a mistake choosing the “academic” science path as opposed to the visual arts design path he envisioned me following. This conversation has surprisingly haunted me because I felt as though it was a choice between visual arts and studying science/art at UBC. This was shattered a few days ago when I got accepted to the forestry program at UBC I have been dreaming about and launched kendal designs!
This day to me truly symbolized the mixing of two worlds that in reality where never separate. Having a passion and flair for the arts only benefits any area you explore and/or work in and vice versa. I could not be more ecstatic about my little local design company that so far is all about creating terrariums and the fact that I can finally chant “wood is good” at UBC and take countless conservation and forestry courses!
Here are a few photos of my new creations for kendal designs! Instagram: kendaldesigns
urbansucculents 